"You can have either a negative or positive outlook, and it won't change the results. What it does change is the experience."
This is a quote I heard recently from a story told on one of the Moth podcasts. It's from a lady who was in remission for breast cancer and got pregnant. Even though I'm not in a scenario anywhere close to that, this quote really stuck with me, and I feel like I needed to hear it.
I love analyzing myself, especially picking out all the stuff that's wrong with me. Obviously low self-esteem is one of them - I know, I need to work on that, once I'm done obsessing over all the other character flaws. Maybe related to the low self-confidence, I don't know - a problem I recently realized I have is that I'm so, damn,
insecure.
It's so ironic because a lot of people tell me I'm so easygoing, so cheerful all the time, and how they
envy me. Ha. Wait till they get inside my head.
I worry and I get super anxious about some things that I can't foresee in my future. It's usually about the things I dread that will happen, and the things I really
want to happen, but I'm so scared to hope for because I'm even more frightened of disappointment.
There's 2 types of people. There's the control freak - they plan out everything in their lives and they're so naive and sure of themselves, that nothing will go wrong as long as they do everything in their plan. Then when something goes wrong, it's awful and hits them like a slap in the face, but at the very least they weren't miserable for the whole time leading up to that event.
Then there's the "go with the flow" hippie person who
knows you can't control everything and that's exactly why they're also on their guard and chewing down their nails the whole time. Then when something goes wrong, they
still get let down in the end even though they told themselves they saw it coming.
I would choose to be the first type in a heartbeat. But I'm the latter.
Usually, people who act like me are people who have been hurt or traumatized at some point, and so they've built this armor and don't trust anything - not God, not other people, not themselves. I've never gone through anything like that, though. I led a sheltered, protected life. Strangers have never hurt me, my parents have never hurt me, my friends have never hurt me, my boyfriend--- Except I didn't have one until now.
That's exactly why I
am scared, maybe. Because I've never lost someone in that sense before, to a break-up. I'm so afraid of being "heartbroken."
Back before I had a boyfriend, I was afraid of getting
into a relationship. I would be the most passive person in the WORLD when it came to a member of the opposite sex. If I was interested in him, or had a crush on him, or even liked him to the point of daydreaming about a future together - yes I'm that creepy - I would never, ever make the first move. Or make a move at all. I'd take my secret to the grave, or less dramatically said, I'd wait till enough time passed and I moved on. That, from my experiences, either meant I turned down the guy despite actually liking him (yes, facepalm), and/or, he got a girlfriend. Yup.
I guess it's a miracle then that some remarkably thick-skinned guy barged his way into my world, and I was able to open up just that LITTLE bit to get close to him. And I should be happy. I should be content at last, because something I've been terrified of for a really long time - both terrified of and secretly yearning for - finally happened. I shouldn't have anything else to worry about, right?
WRONG.
Now it's just new worries. Are we right for each other? Will we stay together after blah-blah-blah happens? Where will we be, a year from now, two years from now, three? Will we be able to last through long-distance? Will "fate" keep us together or break us apart?
I really do think my anxiety in part has to come from my overactive imagination. I am *so* imaginative. It lets me pass the time standing in line without resorting a smartphone - I just switch on my mind. It gives me awesome dreams at night that unfold like soap operas and feature films. It gets me absorbed in the books I read and the movies I watch, so much that I'm laughing and sobbing from one minute to the next. But, when it comes to projecting futures that get me either immediately hopeful or crushed, my imagination sucks.
You'd think: isn't it better to have low expectations, and then be surprised when hey, it turns out to be
not that bad? Like when I thought I got an 80 on this test but I actually got a 93. Or I thought that movie is gonna suck, but I leave the theater just amazed and giddy. Happy surprise feels loads better than cold disappointment right? So isn't it ALWAYS better to have low expectations?
But I don't know. I think the quote really does have a point. Why expect something bad to happen when it hasn't happened yet? What difference does it make? Whatever happens will happen. But dreading about it just ruins the days leading up to it.
I've never realized before how brave people going into relationships are. I mean, it's a fairly common thing, people dating other people. I never realized how much of a risk it is - you pour in a lot of hope and expectations and feelings, and you might come out with hurt and disappointment and nothing.
Welcome to life, I guess.
I know I gotta try, to not look so far in the future - because I already KNOW that won't change anything. I gotta live in the present, and just focus on what I have right now, not what I can potentially lose.
And I also need to learn how to accept losses and disappointments better. I'm still so much of a kid in that sense. I need to grow up. Sigh.
